Editing Martin Heidegger (section)

====''Der Spiegel'' interview====
On 23 September 1966, Heidegger was interviewed by [[Georg Wolff (journalist)|Georg Wolff]], a former Nazi, and [[Rudolf Augstein]] for ''[[Der Spiegel]]'' magazine, in which he agreed to discuss his political past provided that the interview be published posthumously. ("[[Only a God Can Save Us]]" was published five days after his death, on 31 May 1976.){{sfn|Augstein|Wolff|Heidegger|1976|pages=193–219}} In the interview, Heidegger defended his entanglement with Nazism in two ways. First, he claimed that there was no alternative, saying that with his acceptance of the position of rector of the [[University of Freiburg]] he was trying to save the university (and science in general) from being politicized and thus had to compromise with the Nazi administration. Second, he admitted that he saw an "awakening" (''Aufbruch'') which might help to find a "new national and social approach," but said that he changed his mind about this in 1934, when he refused, under threat of dismissal, to remove from the position of dean of the faculty those who were not acceptable to the Nazi party, and he consequently decided to resign as rector.{{sfn|Augstein|Wolff|Heidegger|1976|pages=193–219}}

In his interview Heidegger defended as [[double-speak]] his 1935 lecture describing the "inner truth and greatness of this movement." He affirmed that Nazi informants who observed his lectures would understand that by "movement" he meant Nazism. However, Heidegger asserted that his dedicated students would know this statement wasn't praise for the [[Nazi Party]]. Rather, he meant it as he expressed it in the parenthetical clarification later added to ''Introduction to Metaphysics'' (1953), namely, "the confrontation of planetary technology and modern humanity."{{sfn|McGrath|2008|page=92}}

The eyewitness account of Löwith from 1940, contradicts the account given in the ''Der Spiegel'' interview in two ways: that he did not make any decisive break with Nazism in 1934, and that Heidegger was willing to entertain more profound relations between his philosophy and political involvement. The ''Der Spiegel'' interviewers did not bring up Heidegger's 1949 quotation comparing the industrialization of agriculture to the extermination camps. In fact, the interviewers were not in possession of much of the evidence now known for Heidegger's Nazi sympathies.{{efn|The 1966 interview published in 1976 after Heidegger's death as {{cite magazine |title=Only a God Can Save Us |url=https://archive.org/stream/MartinHeidegger-DerSpiegelInterviewenglishTranslationonlyAGodCan/Heidegger-derSpiegelInterview1966 |magazine=[[Der Spiegel]] |date=1976-05-31 |pages=193–219 |translator=William J. Richardson}} For critical readings, see the {{Citation |title=Special Feature on Heidegger and Nazism |url=https://criticalinquiry.uchicago.edu/past_issues/issue/winter_1989_v15_n2/ |journal=Critical Inquiry |year=1989 |volume=15 |issue=2 |edition=Winter 1989 |doi=10.1086/ci.15.2.1343581}}, particularly the contributions by [[Jürgen Habermas]] and [[Maurice Blanchot|Blanchot]]. The issue includes partial translations of [[Jacques Derrida]]'s ''Of Spirit'' and [[Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe]]'s ''Heidegger, Art, and Politics: the Fiction of the Political''.}} Furthermore, ''Der Spiegel'' journalist Georg Wolff had been an [[Hauptsturmführer|SS-Hauptsturmführer]] with the [[Sicherheitsdienst]], stationed in Oslo during World War II, and had been writing articles with antisemitic and racist overtones in ''Der Spiegel'' since the end of the war.{{sfn|Janich|2013|page=178}}